For many, the summer months present the ideal time for rest, relaxation and fun. The kids are out of school, and those piles of homework are nonexistent. At Forno Bravo, however, we have been doing our "homework" – listening to customers' feedback, striving to continually improve our ovens and other products, and certainly not sitting still ... unless it's to enjoy some delicious wood-fired cooking.

In this month's newsletter, I'm excited to announce some enhancements we've made to the Primavera oven for better oven performance and easier set-up. See the article below for details on our latest work with the Primavera, and be sure to read the bottom of the newsletter for a special related offer.

As many of you know, the Primavera oven is a small-sized powerhouse, easily maintaining the high heat (750ºF+) necessary for some serious pizza baking, including authentic Pizza Napoletana.

For that perfect pizza, we've included a recipe below for Perfect Pizza Dough. Note: This recipe is for making dough using weight measurements (instead of volume). Personally, I don't even use recipes or a measuring cup when I cook dinner for the family, but pizza dough and bread dough are different. Exactness counts!

Finally, the votes are in for our first Photo Contest. See right for details on the lucky winner and other finalists.

Best regards, and happy cooking,
James

For Perfect Pizza, the Primavera Just Got Better

It seems like just yesterday we introduced our Primavera oven – the world's first fully featured Italian-style oven to require no installation and no special equipment to set it up.
Well, it's two years later and these little ovens just keep getting better!

Primavera owners love their ovens (read some testimonials) for making great food and exploring the world of wood-fired cooking. The Primavera oven easily reaches the 750ºF+ temperatures you need to bake 90-second Italian pizza: beautiful char marks, puffy cornicione, crispy crust and slightly smoky flavor that characterize real Italian pizza. The versatile Primavera also is wonderful for wood-fired roasting, baking and grilling.

Even great things can be improved upon, however, so we have continued to enhance the popular Primavera ovens. Now they cook better, last longer and are even easier to set up.

Here are some of the specific improvements we've made to the Primavera60:

We made the vent thicker and now include an interlocking joint to the clay chimney.

We reduced the weight of the oven base by installing the oven directly in the stand's tray.

We now include an extra layer of insulating castable underneath the Forno Bravo board insulation, reducing weight and improving oven performance.

The reduced weight allowed us to make the oven dome more than 50% denser for better heat retention and cooking performance – without increasing overall weight.

Without really good crust, it's hard to claim you've got a really good pizza. To celebrate the hardworking Primavera ovens, which can bake that lovely authentic Pizza Napoletana, we're including a recipe for what we think is the perfect pizza dough.

For this recipe, we highly recommend measuring your ingredients by weight. Being exact counts, and nothing works better than a digital scale. Measuring by weight is fast, plus it's easy to get the exact hydration (water-to-flour ratio) and dough ball size you want.

Mix the dough in a stand mixer, by hand or in a bread machine. If you are using a stand mixer, mix the dough slowly for 2 minutes, faster for 5 minutes, and slow again for 2 minutes.

Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until it doubles in size. Punch it down and push out the air bubbles. Form the dough into a large ball, then cut it into 3 equal 275 g pieces.

To make your pizza balls, gently roll each piece of dough, then stretch the top of the ball down and around the rest of the ball, until the outer layer wraps around to the bottom. Pinch the ends together to make a smooth ball with a tight outer "skin."

Set your ball seam-side down where it can rest. Dust your pizza balls with flour, and store them under a damp towel, in a proofing tray or under plastic wrap. This will prevent the outside of the ball from drying out and creating a crust ... and becoming difficult to work with. The top of the pizza ball should be soft and silky.

Your pizza balls will need to rest for about 1 hour to become soft and elastic. Then they can be stretched easily into a thin-crust pizza.

The votes are in ... and the winner of the first Forno Bravo Photo Contest is the Anacortes, Wash. oven! Out of the five finalists, the snowy Anacortes oven won with 40% of the votes. A $100 gift certificate to the Forno Bravo Store was at stake, which we will forward to the winner promptly. And all five of the finalists have "Got Wood?" T-shirts headed their way.

Many thanks to all who sent photos and voted in our contest. We had a lot of fun seeing your ovens in their unique home environments, and we know these pictures will provide some wonderful inspiration for other oven owners.

Now through Aug. 31, 2010, we will include a complimentary 5-Pack of Caputo Tipo 00 Flour with every Primavera oven purchase – a $20 value! Produced in Naples for three generations by the Caputo family, Caputo pizza flour is used by most Vera Pizza Napoletana restaurants in Naples and around the world. Caputo Tipo 00 flour combines an extensible gluten with the perfect balance of a finely ground flour that delivers both a crisp crust and a moist crumb.